


v. an arrival in spring.

by swoledor_clegainz



Series: arsan drabbles [5]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Birth, F/M, clegane pups
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-06 01:35:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15183833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swoledor_clegainz/pseuds/swoledor_clegainz





	v. an arrival in spring.

**v. an arrival in spring.**

Maester Wolkan, flashing a rare smile, had confirmed that it was not a pup. 

Rather, it was  _pups._ More than one. Two, maybe. Three, even. 

It was not that Lord Clegane was surprised (how could he be, for he and Lady Arya certainly did not lack for trying) but rather...overwhelmed. A thousand different emotions warred within his chest, clashing and swelling like waves. Joy, perhaps, dread. Winterfell was alight with whispers; How could such a man - a war hero, maybe, but a killer nonetheless - ever manage to nurture a child? How could the Mad Dog of the Saltpans ever manage be a father, when he had no true father to show him? 

Arya, eight long moons into her pregnancy and having absolutely none of it, promptly told them all to sod off. 

The old maester's apprentice was the one to bring the news. Sandor crossed his arms and scowled at the trembling green boy, fresh out of the Citadel, who knew much more about milk of the poppy and the medicinal properties of sourleaf than bringing babes into the world. 

 _"Sandor!_ " 

Screams of pain echoed off of the walls of the Solar and the Keep, each cry more desperate than the next.

Arya was dying. Bleeding out upon their bed. And where had he gone? Holed up in the armory like the craven dog he was once was with a blurred gaze and a half-empty cask of porter. 

He was much too underfoot, they had told him: Lady Sansa, the Septa, and Maester Wolkan. They needed ample room to work, without him hovering and questioning every move, every contraction, every cry of pain. So he had left, paced the hall outside, listened intently at the door, and then strode from the Keep before he busted down the door with an axe. 

Another scream cut through the quiet spring night, loud across the yard, and he damned the Septa for not shutting the window. Curse his size, curse his _everything -_  the pups would kill her, he was sure. They'd be great big brutes just like him, and he'd nearly killed his own mother in childbirth. Some broken part of him thought that maybe the Septa wished him to hear his wife's laments, and he was suddenly grateful. At least he knew, as long as she screamed, that she yet lived. 

He slid down against the wall and onto his bottom, defeated. 

He  _would not_ pray, he told himself, but yet he did so anyway, practically blathering away to the seven gods he wasn't quite certain existed. 

"Seven hells," he whispered, and soon the drink lulled him into a restless sleep. 

At midnight he was roused by Ser Davos, crouching before him and clutching a torch in hand.

"She's calling for you, lad. Urgently." 

He stood up so quickly his bad leg screamed in protest and his head swam dangerously. He promptly ignored both, swearing and only steadying himself briefly on the stone wall.

She was pale, and exhausted, and covered in sweat, so very beautiful and _perfect_ and yet completely dwarfed by their bed- but she was alive, and he'd never been happier to see her as such. Her large grey eyes met his sad brown ones, before looking down at the small fleshly bundles suckling at her teats. 

"Your sons," she whispered, voice raspy, and even illness she beamed with certain pride at what she had bore him. 

He crossed their Solar in two limping strides and quickly fell to his knees at her bedside, his brow knit upwards. He had been afraid; he had expected- well, he did not know what he had expected. For them to be deformed, burnt as he was. 

They were beautiful.

His boys were small, red as a slapped bottom and wrinkled, all three -  _three,_ blessed Mother - with tufts of thick, dark hair. "They'll be as ugly as their father," he chuckled. 

"As big and handsome as their father," she whispered weakly. "And twice as noble." 

One of the pups' eyes opened, so piercing a grey, and closed again. He knew those eyes well; Stark eyes. Arya's eyes. 

A small, pudgy hand reached out towards him, and he hesitated, looking up at her as if asking permission. She smiled, nodding in encouragement, and gently - as careful as he had ever done anything - he took one of his sons in his huge bare hands and held him gingerly against his chest. He could feel the little pup's heart through the thin material of his tunic, against his own hammering rhythm. He was so large, he thought, and he could not believe how small the pup was. 

"Ned," she whispered. And he looked up at her, nodded.  _Of course._

She looked at the dark-haired babes still suckling. "Robb..." The other pup yawned in contentment, snuggling against his mother. "...and Hoster." 

Sandor smiled, the first genuine one in weeks. "Aye," he almost cooed the word, bringing his whiskery lips to Ned's cheek. The boy turned in his hands, a tiny paw reaching up to his father's scarred face. 

Arya laid her head back on the pillow, smiling, her hair pooling around her face in a tawny halo. "You're a papa now, Hound." she said weakly, reaching a hand out to grasp his face. He leaned into her touch, kissing her palm. 

"And you are a mama." 

 


End file.
